Page 65 of Corrupt Shadows

Lorcan still holds me in his clutches, my back to his front. The asshole won’t let go. So I use the only weapon available in my arsenal. I twist my head toward his neck and bite deeply into the soft tattooed flesh of his neck. The skin breaks beneath my canines, and blood seeps into my mouth before spilling from my lips. He grunts, and I swear his dick twitches against my ass.

My death magic brews dangerously in the cavity it resides in as Lorcan takes a few more steps into the Shadow Realm. My anxiety turns into a full-blown panic attack. I thrash in his arms, elbowing him in the ribs. He grunts but doesn’t free me.

My spine arches as my magic coalesces, and he holds me tighter to his chest. For a moment, it is as if we do not exist as two separate bodies. His shadow magic bands around us tightly like a safety net. I catch a glimpse of Ezra’s grin as he slips through the mirror milliseconds before my death magic makes impact.

The death magic breaks through my carefully constructed walls, and surges from my body. The powerful blast ripples outward in a circle, the near-translucent magic shimmering like a heat wave.

The glass of the mirror disintegrates except for a few larger shards. A glitter-like substance floats among the ash in the air, then melts away before my eyes. I scratch at the demon’s forearms like a caged monster.

The magic imbuing the mirror frame with life slowly drains away, leaving a tarnished disaster in its wake. The frame, somehow protected from the blast, stands empty and desolate. Lorcan shoves me to the floor. My teeth clack together so hard, pain radiates through my jaw, yet it is only a momentary distraction from the horror unfolding before me.

Lorcan paces in front of me. Then without warning, he stops directly in front of me, shaking from head to foot. His murderous gaze settles on me, but his eyes quickly dart away. He tips his chin toward the ceiling, every visible muscle tensed. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “Fuuuuuck!” he roars, the tendons in his neck protruding. Lorcan stabs his tattooed fingers into his hair and yanks the strands violently. His face contorts into pure madness.

I’ve never seen this side of him before.

“Witch,” Lorcan growls, low and deadly next to my ear. “You just destroyed our only path out of this fucking realm.”

“At least only Ezra got through. I acted on instinct. Your other brothers would have followed us too if I didn’t destroy the mirror.”

“You better use every ounce of magic in your body to repair the damage. If you fail, I promise the remainder of your life will not be pleasant.”

Sweat beads on my forehead and trickles down my temple. Fuck. What have I done? I scramble forward, slicing open my knees on the shards lying there. I can’t be stuck here. I’ll never get back to Gomez. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I kneel, paralyzed with grief, my blood trickling onto the debris. The jagged shards glow with muted ethereal beauty from the desk light in my office. Then, as if my blood triggered a failsafe, the remaining mirror pieces transform into a liquid and meld into the carpet of apartment.

“No. No. No. No. No,” I chant, unable to stop it even if I wanted to. My bloodied fingers stick to my face as I cover my eyes.

Lorcan storms out of the room, and I hear things slam against the wall of the living room. The unmistakable sound of shattering glass fills the quiet apartment as Lorcan releases his rage. He stalks back toward me, his all-black eyes finding mine. He chuckles mirthlessly, shaking his head. “Evie,” Lorcan says sternly. “Since you are incapable of successfully wielding any useful magic, we need to move. I haven’t a clue where Ezra is now, but he will not be far.”

The importance of his words and furious tone don’t register in my mind. Guilt, fear, and utter despair crash over me like gusts in a violent storm. I shift onto my ass, then rock back and forth. The word no continues to issue from my throat. I can’t stop. The world around me is muffled, like I’m submerged in the dark depths of the lake near my childhood home. My brain works to comprehend the words the demon utters, but I am unable to translate them into understandable language.

Vertigo washes over me, so I put my head between my knees. Lorcan speaks into my mind. “Let’s go, witch. I am all out of patience.”

But I don’t answer him.

He lifts my foot off the ground, but I pay him no mind. Nothing matters in this space of delirium. Time crawls as if I’m moving in slow motion but everything else is speeding around me. It’s like I’m driving a car down a steep hill and the brakes fail. The outside world would blur past the windows as I slam my foot on the brake pedal over and over. There’s nothing I can do to stop from crashing. Eventually, I’d resign myself to make my body go limp, to lessen the damage on impact.

The demon crosses his arms, glaring at me. I curl into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees. I’m unable to make my mind catch up with reality. I am no longer in the Human Realmbut somewhere… other. My chest aches from the strain the panic attacks have put on my mortal body. This place feels wrong but at the same time feels like coming home. My heart palpitates as I recognize that the dark side of me, the side I have been trying to repress for so long, feels content. My death magic stretches inside me, uncoiling itself and spreading out as far as it can under my skin. I’ve never felt it so weak yet alive.

Lorcan lets out a deep breath. He scratches his beard, the soft scraping sound too loud in this place absent of noise. That’s when I notice the ash again. I look toward the ceiling, wishing to locate the source of the strange phenomenon. I catch some of the substance on my tattooed fingers and smear it between the pads of my fingers.

Lorcan touches his index and pointer finger to the bite mark I inflicted when we first crossed the portal, as if he’s just remembering it. He draws his fingers away and stares at the blood staining them with undeniable hunger in his gaze. The calm he exuded a moment ago vanishes. His eyes raise to meet mine, narrowing. The V between his eyebrows deepens. Onyx bleeds into his green irises, taking over their pastel hue. A madness peers at me from behind his darkened depths. Lorcan sucks his blood-coated fingers into his inviting mouth, then closes his eyes and moans as if the taste of his own blood gets him off.

“That was a poor decision, witch.” His tongue slips between his lips before slowly skating across his full upper lip.

He steps toward me, but something scrapes against the window in the living room, breaking into his spiraling madness. My skin crawls, and I hug myself, gripping my shoulders to stop the tremors under my skin.

Shock is a lot like being trapped between a fever breaking and returning to consciousness, my body and brain attempting to fight the foreign germ that has invaded my body. My body reaches the precipice of increasing heat before it wins the battle against the inferno it created. I hover in a place of nothing. I cannot decipher where my body begins or ends. My mind is everything and nothing all at once, shamelessly flaunting its practiced ability to disassociate. In this strange place, time holds no meaning, but either way, it is a reprieve of the awareness life demands.

Lorcan breaks through the realm of nothing, shouting directly into my brain. We need to move now. My brother could return at any moment, and you are not in any state to be more than a godsdamn blubbering target.

I don’t respond, just stare at the floor with unseeing eyes.

“This is not the place to fall to pieces. Wake the fuck up and start walking.”

I sway, suddenly standing, as Lorcan pulls me to my feet.

“Fuck this,” he states aloud.

For a moment, my body is weightless, and the defined muscles of Lorcan’s shoulder digs into my belly. Reality, the wretched asshole, attacks my mind with awareness when Lorcan clamps an arm across the back of my thighs.

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